


Woman

by agnetasteam



Series: Da Vinci's Demons Ficlets [4]
Category: Da Vinci's Demons
Genre: Gen
Language: English
Status: Completed
Published: 2020-01-11
Updated: 2020-01-11
Packaged: 2021-02-19 03:00:28
Rating: Teen And Up Audiences
Warnings: No Archive Warnings Apply
Chapters: 1
Words: 679
Publisher: archiveofourown.org
Story URL: https://archiveofourown.org/works/22204135
Author URL: https://archiveofourown.org/users/agnetasteam/pseuds/agnetasteam
Summary: Zita had entered his life unexpectedly.
Relationships: Girolamo Riario/Zita
Series: Da Vinci's Demons Ficlets [4]
Series URL: https://archiveofourown.org/series/1597405
Comments: 4
Kudos: 3





	Woman

Zita had entered his life unexpectedly, like his father, his uncle and his cousins, like the Vatican, his titles and his charges, and his guts to shed blood as if it were not a sin.

He was barely assimilating all the changes he had experienced since he left the monastery, when his father showed up in his bedroom without warning, interrupting his reading.

Girolamo had taken a manuscript from the Vatican archives with the complicity of Cardinal Lupo Mercuri, who demanded that he read it without anyone noticing that it was in his hands. For that reason, when he felt the door open, he stood up immediately, hiding behind him what was on the desk.

He walked into his room along with a black girl whose arm he was holding tightly. The girl's eyes spoke of a fear that Girolamo didn't want to decipher, but she made no effort to free herself.

"My Son," he said, watching the girl from head to toe with lasciviousness, "I brought you a present."

"For what?" Girolamo asked, astonished that he called him that way. He repented immediately upon hearing his father's laugh.

"For what?" Alexander observed him mockingly. "Don't you know what to do with a woman?"

Girolamo concentrated so that his face didn't reflect the fury he was feeling. At times like that he wanted to return to the monastery, where he didn't have to endure the humiliations of anyone in silence.

"Leave us alone, please."

His father pushed the girl to his bed and left the room without any comment, which was never necessary. His gaze reflected all his thoughts.

The girl stood up again and fixed her gaze on the floor. Girolamo wondered how much she would understand his language so that his father would risk calling him "son" in front of her.

"What is your name?"

He got no answer and that made him feel more ridiculous than his father. He had no time, patience or ideas to deal with that situation. He turned around and resumed his reading.

The truth was that Zita had turned a stone in his shoes. Not that it was her fault; Girolamo appreciated the effort the girl was making to stay in a corner of the room and not interfere with his life, but it wasn't working.

Except for the moments when the young Abyssinian collaborated with the other servants in the chores, she was always keeping him company. And it was frustrating because she didn't respond to his attempts to establish conversation and he didn't have time to deal with this. Between the training he was doing and the tasks that his father asked for, the time he had to devote to reading was short, he was exhausted and that girl was a constant distraction.

A couple of weeks after her arrival, during dinner, his father asked him how the abyssinian was behaving.

"Fine," he replied as he shrugged, not willing to have that kind of conversation, especially when he was eating.

"Because if she doesn't please you enough, give her to me. I will know how to educate her."

Girolamo didn't look up from his plate, he didn't want to see the depraved expression on his father's face, for who he had already shed the blood of several children. Some nights he thought that if the events had happened differently, he could have been one of them.

"It won't be necessary," he said, wishing it was the last time they talked about it.

That same night, Girolamo took several candles to his bedroom, determined to resign part of his hours of rest to finish reading that manuscript. Lupo claimed it every time he saw him, and Girolamo was running out of excuses to keep it.

Suddenly he felt a small hand on his shoulder.

"Zita," said that girl.

"Zita?" Girolamo repeated without understanding what she was trying to say. "Do you want anything? Do you need anything?"

The girl shook her head.

"I ... name Zita."

Unlike Girolamo, the girl didn't smile, but after weeks of indifference, it was a progress.


End file.
